Assessment of antibiotics in raw milk produced and sold by small scale dairy farmers of Kaberamaido District.

Abstract

Milk is an important source of nutrients to human and animals, however, the use of antibiotics in the treatment of animals has created problems for the milk processors and consumers causing, economic losses to the dairy industry. This study was to assess antibiotics in raw-milk produced, and sold by small scale dairy fanners of Kaberamaido, district. Quantitative study was conducted to establish the presence of antibiotics in raw market milk. A total of 60 milk samples were collected for laboratory analysis including milk-acidity and microbial quality tests. the milk samples were collected from four milk vendors and were repeated five times 0.1N Sodium Hydroxide was titrated with 1 ML of phenolphthalein indicator to determine acidity in milk sample. Nutrient Agar (ISO-6579 ISO -10273 ISO 19250) was used to prepare culture media and Serial dilution (10-3) was carried-out using l ml of milk sample to determine microbiological quality through Total Plate Count:

Results showed that, 75% of the milk was above the normal acidity of milk and 25% was below the normal range of milk acidity. The average acidity of milk is 0.19 which is higher than the normal range of milk acidity. The probability value wasp= 0.0138 giving the mean of 0.1885, This showed that there is a significant difference in the acidity. Of milk. For antibiotic presence in milk, the probability valve was p=0.2060 and this indicated that there is no significant difference in acidity of milk The acidity of milk was above the normal range implying that there was no antibiotic used. The microbiological quality of milk showed that the average of microbiological quality is 3085 which were above the normal range of microbial load in-milk. The probability value was p=0.0092 which, indicated that there is a significant difference within the microbial load. Therefore, the suppliers of milk in Kaberamaido still need to improve on their hygiene on milk handling. The milk was safe from antibiotics implying that milk vendors did not use any antibiotic as a preservative and farmers followed drug withdrawal periods